What's wrong with tweeting about Dallas? He covered them previously Its not like he lauds the mavs while crapping on the rox
Personally, I thought it was a good, informative article -- and it appropriately reflected the ugliness and dysfunction of this season and the very clear shortcomings of James Harden. One can be both objective and critical at the same time. I still recall he's had many articles this season that were more optimistic and positive. Are his tweets about Dallas glowing praise in contrast to his tweets about Houston? If he happens to follow two teams, so what? He's a beat writer, not a fan.
Your views are fair. I'm not saying my view is necessarily the correct one. He has the right to criticize a team, that's the freedom of the press. I think he turns small things into big things. Of course he was positive towards the Rockets before the season started. He was new to the gig and wanted to make sure people within the organization didn't despise him throughout the season. He obviously made a few connections within the team and I feel that he used his connections and created drama. He comes off as a guy who would get a player to dislike another player to create a story. We never had anything negative about the players off the court in outlets that weren't gossip sites, until this season. The product on the court is one thing. Creating stories regarding James and Dwight hating each other, James being a primadonna by taking a bus or having security take his bags just seem like things that are said to get a team rattled. I do not believe the only ESPNHOUSTON writer, who by the way is verified on Twitter as the Houston Rockets ESPN Writer, should have a heavy dosage of Dallas Tweets. I don't follow ESPNDALLAS writers because I don't care about Dallas. I wouldn't expect people in Dallas to care about the Astros or the Texans. I don't follow him on Twitter because I don't want to see tweets about Dallas. I wish we had an ESPN guy who actually was a Houstonian and had a connection to the city. Hate on a bad product all you want, but at least care about the city to whom you're writing for.
It's difficult for me to take anything from ESPN seriously. They're the National Enquirer of sports, in my humble opinion. Watkins is no better or worse than the rest of them, as far as I'm concerned.
This is exactly my sentiment. Luckily Bill Simmons and the Ringer are launching this summer. Shea Serrano, a Houstonian, who is also a Rocket's hater, but in a fun way, runs a newsletter called Basketball (And Other Things) that provides entertaining writing. ESPN pretends it's a news site when in reality it's become a Yellow Journalism hot bed. Bill and Shea are better writers than anyone at ESPN and they are purely for entertainment. ESPN has Zach Lowe and to a lesser extent Marc Stein for good basketball coverage. IF they lose both of those guys their coverage would be in trouble.
Thanks for the heads-up! It's a pity that ESPN is world class when it comes to suckage. They do have some talent still, like you point out, but not nearly enough to justify their apparent domination of sports coverage on the internet. They need to have some serious competition from somewhere. They can't touch Clutch and ClutchFans when it comes to the NBA, not in my opinion, but this is a BBS. Known to many, obviously, with 50,000+ members, but not a similar outlet with ESPN's cable presence. Being on cable is ESPN's huge advantage over the other sports internet sources.
When it comes to Rockets writing, there is little that can touch the original content provided on this site. I wish there was more. David Hardisty (Clutch), Ben DuBose (The Cat) and David Weiner (BimaThug) are able to articulate their stories in an elegant way that rivals the best sports writers around. We have Codman and Cyberx providing insider information that very few teams have as a resource for information. To top it off, we have a large pool of active posters on this site that are dedicated and passionate about a product that has provided a lot of frustrations to many in the past 20 years. This season is probably the most divided I've seen the forum, (well maybe the Jeremy Lin days) but people kept stuff civil for the most part. I read Reddit for other basketball links but there isn't much original content on the Rockets subreddit. We are definitely lucky to have a place where people like myself can vent about a writer who rubs me the wrong way and there can be cordial conversation on the subject. Especially after a season like we all just endured, it's probably easier to just say I'm a homer and that's the end of it.
I don't know who Calvin Watkins is, because I almost never read anything the press writes about the Rockets. I watch all the games, so I don't need to hear their opinions. I can see with my own eyes what's good and what's bad about the Rockets. The opinions of someone in the press isn't more important than anyone here at ClutchFans.
it's a free country we can like or dislike anyone we want. he has no issues hating on the rockets so it's all fair game as far as i'm concerned. his public sports reporting is not above reproach.
It's a free country and we can call anyone we want "sensitive." Nobody is proposing government sanction against critics of Calvin Watkins.
Calvin spent years covering Dallas teams and Cowboys in particular. He still has most of his connections there but he's not a bad dude. He was slow taking Jerry Jones off of his twitter picture but when I called him out on it he changed the picture. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/DreamShakeSBN">@DreamShakeSBN</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/calvinwatkins">@calvinwatkins</a> He's fairly new to covering the Rockets, and I think he lives in Dallas, but is doing a nice job.</p>— Christian E (@xiane1) <a href="https://twitter.com/xiane1/status/584049912632848384">April 3, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/xiane1">@xiane1</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/DreamShakeSBN">@DreamShakeSBN</a> I moved to Houston</p>— Calvin Watkins (@calvinwatkins) <a href="https://twitter.com/calvinwatkins/status/584051475145482240">April 3, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/calvinwatkins">@calvinwatkins</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/xiane1">@xiane1</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/DreamShakeSBN">@DreamShakeSBN</a> and you still have Jerry on your Twitter page. What's up with that. Let Dallas go!</p>— Randy Graham (@crash5179) <a href="https://twitter.com/crash5179/status/584062355950051328">April 3, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/crash5179">@crash5179</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/xiane1">@xiane1</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/DreamShakeSBN">@DreamShakeSBN</a> just did. U cool with that?</p>— Calvin Watkins (@calvinwatkins) <a href="https://twitter.com/calvinwatkins/status/584068661062668288">April 3, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> He could have been an ass and just ignored me or come up with some sly answer but he changed his picture instantly. He's ok with me after that.
yea but posters in this forum aren't public figures like watkins. calling them out is ridiculous, who gives a ****... watkins on the other hand is a public figure who publishes his work.